Can we get a QOL update for spirits? [Merged]

[Solnos.8045]

Firebrands previously got a quality of life update which made mantras always ready without needing to be precasted and it is great. It made using mantras feel smooth and not like a chore. 

On the other hand, spirits are still clunky to use. You have to go through a long animation to cast the spirit, then wait a second or two of cooldown before you have to cast it again, then you have to wait for it to activate its effect. It is so long. They are also needed when playing druids or untamed, or when you want to give alacrity. The concept of spirits is so cool and I always kit them when I can. I love being able to support teammates with them, but using them is such a pain.

Can we make it so the spirit uses its skill on its initial summon. That's honestly all I ask. Make it so it's summoned and use its effect in one button during its initial summon, instead of two clicks with long delays between them. 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Solnos.8045

[Zyreva.1078]

The second cast is very short (the long spirit animation/delay is not a big deal imo) and not the problem, the problem is that spirts keep dieing and need to be resummoned all the time, which is very annoying. Moved out of range - spirits dead. Mount up - spirits dead. No heal for the spirits - spirits dead ....

[InsaneQR.7412]

Tbh they should make spirits just summons bound to you and you can cast them a second time for the active. Let them be mobile and give the active a ground target.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

8 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

The second cast is very short (the long spirit animation/delay is not a big deal imo) and not the problem, the problem is that spirts keep dieing and need to be resummoned all the time, which is very annoying. Moved out of range - spirits dead. Mount up - spirits dead. No heal for the spirits - spirits dead ....

I was able to calculate on the golem that using the abilities of all three spirits (which you need to maintain Alacrity), lowers my DPS by nearly 5k, because of the extremely long casting times and animation, it takes 3-4 seconds to go through all three of them during which I'm not able to do anything else.

 

Its bearable on healing builds like Druid but when playing DPS Alac Soulbeast in Fractals its just such a slog. I have the same problem on Power Untamed.

 

Their abilities should not have a casting time since they're already been summoned.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

14 hours ago, InsaneQR.7412 said:

Tbh they should make spirits just summons bound to you and you can cast them a second time for the active. Let them be mobile and give the active a ground target.

They were already like this, it was removed a few years into the game for "server performance reasons". Guardian spirit pets got axed at the same time and for the same reason, minis got auto-hidden, and most minion-summoning items got a cooldown of 30mins no matter how mediocre the summon is.

 

I believe Engi turrets also had some major changes to reduce server load. Of course, this was back when ArenaNet was self-hosting at NCSoft; they could probably re-add it now with AWS.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I was able to calculate on the golem that using the abilities of all three spirits (which you need to maintain Alacrity), lowers my DPS by nearly 5k, because of the extremely long casting times and animation, it takes 3-4 seconds to go through all three of them during which I'm not able to do anything else.

With quickness it takes like a second if not less to use 3 spirit active abilities. That's not the reason for any significant dps loss. Slotting spirits (and having to run nature magic and also boon duration on any non untamed spec) is where the dps loss comes from (and it's more than 5k loss compared to a full dps slb) and that's why dps alac soulbeast isn't really a thing.

[Solnos.8045]

24 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

With quickness it takes like a second if not less to use 3 spirit active abilities. That's not the reason for any significant dps loss. Slotting spirits (and having to run nature magic and also boon duration on any non untamed spec) is where the dps loss comes from (and it's more than 5k loss compared to a full dps slb) and that's why dps alac soulbeast isn't really a thing.

Do you always have permanent quickness in every encounter in open world or every trash mob in fractals?
I mean yes if the spirits never died it would be very smooth cause you only have to cast it once. It’s the double casting that feels horrible. If they want to rework the spirits to never die, then thats fine too but unless you want them to be like pulsing auras, they will have to die eventually.

The summoning process, however, is very clunky. On untamed its a part of your rotation and having to cast it over and over feels like having to recast old firebrand mantras. Back then firebrands had to recast mantras every time they entered a new map, right now rangers have to recast spirits at every encounter. 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

They had the right idea when they accidentally did that patch where the spirit boons pulsed from the ranger instead of the spirits. That should have implemented as a mainstay QoL feature.

[voltaicbore.8012]

34 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

They had the right idea when they accidentally did that patch where the spirit boons pulsed from the ranger instead of the spirits. That should have implemented as a mainstay QoL feature.

Agreed. I hope that one day they'll get turned into their own special version of herald facets. No resource drain to turn them on, but you maybe get 2-3 ammo charges to use their active before they turn off and go on cd.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

Honestly a spirit rework to make them function like facets (no spirit entity, just boons pulsing from the ranger, ~450 range 600 traited, with a ground targeted ~750 range 300 radius ~900 range traited active like facet of darkness) I think could help make them function better in multiple different pve modes where you might be moving around more (especially in open world) while also allowing spirits to function in pvp and wvw at all (spirits have ~7,400 HP according to the wiki, and they can't move and provide a decently small amount of boons for those drawbacks. They're easy pickings and not worth the utility slots at all even for wvw support druid). Modern day spirits (without the unique buffs) function even worse in those modes than stationary, unique buffing spirits did in the past.

 

Making them like facets rewards players for sticking near the druid (where the more powerful utility can come in such as CA Glyph of Unity, Sublime Conversion, staff 5, and Rejuvinating Tides, CA 4), while also preventing the drawback in pvp modes of "This utility skill can be killed and cannot defend itself, therefore effectively is unable to function".

[InsaneQR.7412]

11 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

They were already like this, it was removed a few years into the game for "server performance reasons". Guardian spirit pets got axed at the same time and for the same reason, minis got auto-hidden, and most minion-summoning items got a cooldown of 30secs no matter how mediocre the summon is.

 

I believe Engi turrets also had some major changes to reduce server load. Of course, this was back when ArenaNet was self-hosting at NCSoft; they could probably re-add it now with AWS.

Herold gets a shiny tablet beneath their butt. Rnager could get something similar but instead little oakhearts sorround you instead.

I dont think server issues would come up when the spirits do not move independently.

Also: Necro minuons exist and they move, so server latency cannot be an excuse for spirits not being mobile.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

7 minutes ago, InsaneQR.7412 said:

Herold gets a shiny tablet beneath their butt. Rnager could get something similar but instead little oakhearts sorround you instead.

I dont think server issues would come up when the spirits do not move independently.

Also: Necro minuons exist and they move, so server latency cannot be an excuse for spirits not being mobile.

They couldn't make any changes to Necro minions because it was "iconic to their playstyle". I think that was the reasoning, I don't remember exactly as it was like 7-8 years ago or so.

 

But yeah, at launch many classes had permanent minion builds including Guardian and Ranger. The only class that has more minions now than they did at launch is Elementalist, who were originally limited to two Elementals but can now summon up to six.

 

(These weren't the only terrible changes made citing "server performance" , btw.)

Edited October 3, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

9 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

With quickness it takes like a second if not less to use 3 spirit active abilities. That's not the reason for any significant dps loss. Slotting spirits (and having to run nature magic and also boon duration on any non untamed spec) is where the dps loss comes from (and it's more than 5k loss compared to a full dps slb) and that's why dps alac soulbeast isn't really a thing.

I've been playing it for a long time in Fractals and still usually have the highest or second-highest damage. DPS Alac Soulbeast is fine, just not on a power build i guess (I use condi for it).

Edited October 3, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[anduriell.6280]

1 hour ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I've been playing it for a long time in Fractals and still usually have the highest or second-highest damage. DPS Alac Soulbeast is fine, just not on a power build i guess (I use condi for it).

the people you team up must be really terrible if you in a codi build output them. Probably AFK the whole time. 

2 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

They couldn't make any changes to Necro minions because it was "iconic to their playstyle". I think that was the reasoning, I don't remember exactly as it was like 7-8 years ago or so.

And they did because the devs we got balance the ranger by the wiki. Because "roleplayer" reasons i might add. 

Then we got gyros and mechanist marionette which they are mobile. They tried to make them static but that would not sit well with the dev's favorite class as it seems. 

16 hours ago, InsaneQR.7412 said:

Tbh they should make spirits just summons bound to you and you can cast them a second time for the active. Let them be mobile and give the active a ground target.

Only good solution in this thread. 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

7 minutes ago, anduriell.6280 said:

the people you team up must be really terrible if you in a codi build output them. Probably AFK the whole time. 

And they did because the devs we got balance the ranger by the wiki. Because "roleplayer" reasons i might add. 

Then we got gyros and mechanist marionette which they are mobile. They tried to make them static but that would not sit well with the dev's favorite class as it seems. 

Only good solution in this thread. 

The build does about 15k DPS in real situations, which is usually only exceeded by Machinists or well-played Weavers, or a true power Soulbeast, occasionally as well-played Bladesworn.

 

There's a difference between golem DPS and real-world DPS, and condi Soulbeast has a very high damage uptime on any build even with spirits slotted into it because of their ability to stay on the target constantly with dagger having two leaps and axe (main and offhand) and torch being quasi-ranged.

 

I'd argue their ability to stay on the target is second only to rifle Machinist.

 

Of course others will do more in raids and strike CMs where you're grouping with players who have finely tuned rotations and very specific, optimised builds, but that's not most of the game content and in most cases a DPS Alac Soulbeast is just fine to play if you know what you're doing.

 

Honestly, its kind of unfair to say people are AFK just because they don't do optimal DPS.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[anduriell.6280]

Just now, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I'd argue their ability to stay on the target is second only to rifle Machinist.

um, i mean the dagger has that weird delay with the precast animation which makes the skill to miss most of the time in mobile targets, but i wasn't talking about that. 

Condi builds usually take a bit to build the damage up, usually outclassed by any power build at least in fractal. I can only get a decent DPS when targeting tankier mobs, but most die even before the bleeds build up. With dagger you miss most of the bags as well because is treated as a power weapon instead a condi one. 

Am i missing something there? 

[KgsRoCks.5103]

Having to wait to summon the spirit is the worst for me. 

So many rotations broken. Cant even get the crystal on Jade Maw because I wasn summoning a spirit... etc.. Oh yeah, celestial form, want to cast 3, but at the same time alac is almost down, lets waste 2 seconds of celestial summoning a spirit that died.... 

 

The easiest and more confy way, would be like sigils, but im just ok with having reducing summoning time. 

[Canidae Canis.2861]

Ranger Spirits are one of the worst, if not the worst, remaining Utility skill mechanics in the game. Not only do we have to micromanage their health and position on the field, but in order to maintain alacrity they have to be activated off-CD unless you're running 4 of them (or untamed with CD reduction). The off-CD spamming completely negates their intended active effects and repositions them, so now you're also fighting alac uptime with proper positioning so they don't die and remain near the party they're supposed to buff. The more mobility required in a fight the more useless they become.

 

We can argue about effectiveness and cast times, but the bottom line for me is: It is an exceedingly frustrating and unfun mechanic. Anet, please - this really needs to be changed. Plenty of good suggestions here and in other threads, and we're essentially getting at the same thing. Turn them into a Facet-like or Spirit Weapon-like utility so that we can finally untie ourselves from constantly bleeding out tree spirits that are only useful in stationary fights. 

[Lynx.9058]

IMO druids should have gotten permanent spirits that follow the player, instead of access to the pet again.  Would've been more thematically fitting and support themed, basically turning druid spirits into something akin to necromancer minions.

[Lynx.9058]

Instead of having a pet active for the druid specialization, what if it changed the functionality of the Spirit abilities, making them into the equivalent of necromancer minions?  Spirits, once summoned, would have unlimited duration and follow the druid around until killed, and their activated effects would become available just like the active abilities of necro minions.  This seems like it would fit Druid more thematically, as well as provide a better support option and make spirits (which are necessary for support builds) much easier to use.

[Beddo.1907]

So we lose the pet dps and countless pet synergies in return for spirits positioning being a bit better.
Umm no.

[Raim.6123]

Few of nice options they could consider.
1. Spirits moving with us.
2. Being able to aim spirits on initial cast and/or recast.